You are probably familiar with Garfield, the cartoon by Jim Davis. His “work” inspired me to consider what the various cats throughout my life might want to say to me if they had any concept of language, or rather verbal language. As far as I can tell, cats talk with their bodies and so they have little use for the sounds they can make with their vocal chords. I should make an exception for caterwauling, but this may not be the right place to discuss why they do that!
For a long time, I thought I was pretending that I knew what the cat was trying to tell me. However, one night while I was lying in bed, one of our Maine Coon moms, Havana, put her paw on my face, claws slightly extended. It was annoying, but didn’t scratch me or hurt me. What happened next convinced me that I wasn’t actually pretending. I was inspired, for some reason to get up and check their food bowl. It was empty. The signal was established and now I find that any cat that puts its paws on my face while I am sleeping (or trying to fool it into thinking I’m sleeping) is associated with an empty food bowl.
Please note that it is not a good idea to make sure your cats always have access to food they love. Some cats end up obese because of that kind of love. The really delicious food should come to them in meal-sized proportions at meal time, and the rest of the time, they should have access to something in case they get hungry.
Our cats like to be in the bathroom when I’m in there, and sometimes they don’t follow me out. This gives me the opportunity to practice two things. First, I can talk to the cat and intend for the cat to come out. Second, I can practice voluntaryism by respecting the cat’s choice whether to stay in there or come out. I will do that, but only for a minute. Sometimes they like to be picked up, and I don’t mind indulging that. We keep the door to the bathroom closed because kitty cats love unrolling toilet paper and leaving a beautiful pile of it under the dispenser. The humans don’t like that. Therefore, I imagine being locked in the bathroom, in an effort to get the cat to realized (while I’m slowly closing the door), that they will soon be trapped if they don’t come out.
I learned from a Tim Ferriss podcast in which he interviewed a lady who worked for a human-animal communication research facility, that the impression we get that dogs can read each other’s minds, is probably accurate. She got an image of the upper arm of a man with a tattoo on it, and the blue sky in the background. The protocol, which she then recalled, was to make sure that any such random thought not be ignored if it happens in a room with an animal. To honor the work of her employer, she added a note about the image to her report. A while later, she heard sobbing from the lobby and went to investigate. She found a lady there looking at her report and crying. Once she had helped the lady regain her composure, she learned that the lady’s son had recently died in a car accident, that the dog in the room with the researcher belonged to him, and that he had that tattoo on his upper arm.
The first “principle of natural law” is “All is mind”. If you take this view, you may end up understanding your pets, your significant other, your friends, and even, possibly, the birds that make you happy or annoy you. This extra understanding can make your life better. That is what it has done for me, whether or not it’s really happening. Having some faith makes it a lot easier to achieve this benefit.
Please say “hi” to you pets for me.
Dave Scotese, author of “Brain Juice”, available at Amazon.
Diamond Valley Companions 